


Making Spirits Bright

by RecessiveJean



Category: The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Genre: Case Fic, Christmas, Detectives, Gen, M/M, victorian spiritualism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-08 12:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8844136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RecessiveJean/pseuds/RecessiveJean
Summary: A notice in the newspaper draws Basil and Dawson from the comfort of their fireside to investigate a parlour séance in the country. On arrival they must contend with the amateur enthusiasm of Olivia Flaversham, newly-minted psychic medium.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cookinguptales](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookinguptales/gifts).



“If I never see the inside of another sewer again, it will be too soon.”

“Oh come now Dawson!” Basil, in the act of throwing up the latch, turned an expression of mild irritation on his sometime friend and colleague, squelching sulkily up the steps behind him. “It was hardly worse than pungent.”

“It was an affront to all mice of functioning olfactory sense,” Dawson said feelingly. He gingerly scraped the sole of one boot on the edge of the step. “And now it has frozen all over.”

“Yes, well,” Basil said airily, lifting the latch and admitting them both to the cosy recesses of their shared quarters, “what can you expect, if you will insist on crawling about in a sewer in the dead of winter?”

And, leaving Dawson gaping in mute affront on the rug, he peeled off his stinking greatcoat and vanished upstairs with a cry of “hot water, Mrs. Judson, and all the soap in the house!”

Such was the force of Dawson’s ire that he did not fully recover his function of speech until it was almost too late to toss up an amendment of his own:

“Basil! Not _all_ of it. I need at—oh, honestly, Basil!”

And huffing, puffing, cursing his flatmate roundly under his breath and bristling mustache, David Q. Dawson hustled up the stairs to claim his share of soap.

 

~*~

 

It was two good hot baths and half a pot of tea later that both mice were at last smelling mostly (though not, Dawson felt, _entirely_ ) like themselves again, and settled in by the fire in the drawing room.

“Just the ticket, eh, old man?” Basil said fondly. He drew a lazy violin bow across the strings once, twice, and the strains of _Silent Night_ wafted through the room. Dawson, who rarely wanted anything stronger than a cup of oolong to restore him to perfect good humour, had to concede that it was, indeed.

“Pity we couldn’t pick up that scoundrel’s trail, though,” he added, and sipped thoughtfully at the remnants of his first cup. “I was looking forward to watching you lay him by the heels.”

“Yes, well,” Basil’s brow furrowed slightly. _Silent Night_ stuttered dubiously over the virgin and her infant. “A temporary setback only.”

“Oh, quite.” Dawson, perceiving he had soured the mood, hastened to put it right. “Not many options for him, are there? I mean to say, a charlatan like that, who makes his living defrauding others, he’s bound to stick his neck out again before much longer. Then you’ll have him.”

“Just so.”

 _Silent Night_ steadied once more, and the bars at which little children in the Sunday School would have lisped _sleep in Heavenly peace_ ascended in a sweet, warbling promise of all the comforts of a night at home. There would be a good, soft bed and freshly-aired sheets. Maybe even a warm brick or two tucked down at the feet, if Mrs. Judson felt especially kindly disposed toward them (Dawson had been careful to scrub up every drop of bathwater, anxious to secure all possible kindly feeling available).

Dawson poured out a second cup of tea.

“Evening paper?” he suggested, lifting that same publication from its place of freshly-ironed repose on the side table.

“Yes, why not,” Basil decided, and set aside his violin to accept it. He snapped the thing open with a flourish, and settled back to peruse.

Dawson finished his second cup, and was in the act of arranging for a third when the posture of the mouse sitting across from him underwent an immediate, dramatic shift.

“Dawson!” came the cry from behind the paper. “Dawson, just listen to this.”

With a sense of foreboding that can only accompany the most lengthy and practiced of domestic partnerships, Dawson set the teapot back to the table.

He knew even then that there would be no third cup.

“The society column,” said Basil, his whiskers quivering visibly above the edge of the paper. “Of all places, in the _society column_ , can you credit it? No, but listen:

“A parlour séance is announced. It will take place at Greystone Manor, the country home of the late Sir Frederick Choate. His widow Enid, the Lady Choate, invites all scientific-minded seekers of enlightenment to unite in this endeavour to communicate with her husband on the Other Side.”

“Dear me,” said Dawson, overcome with competing waves of revulsion and sympathy, “the poor woman. She must be grieving most deeply, don’t you think, to . . . er . . . well.” And he here made a gesture that was meant to communicate, in as discreet and kindly a fashion as he could manage, that the Lady Choate was perhaps so thoroughly the captive of Grief that she had, quite understandably though still alarmingly, eluded temporarily the custody of Good Taste.

The gesture, truly magnificent in subtle sensibility, was completely wasted on Basil, who was still consumed by the announcement.

“No, no, no!” he scolded. “That is not the point at all. Dawson, here, _this_ is the part:

“The evening’s experiment will be supported by a variety of true mediumistic talent, led principally by renowned spirit communicator Mr. Anthony Warbler!”

Basil dropped the top half of the paper, then, to beam at Dawson in unabashed triumph. Dawson, rather at a loss, wished he’d followed through with his third cup of tea.

“Is Mr. Warbler known to you, then?”

“To both of us, old man! Why, don’t you see? It’s _him_. Our man!”

“Is it?” Dawson sat forward cautiously in his chair. He tried not to think of hot bricks between fresh sheets. “But, how can you be sure?”

“Simply put, the arrangement of the letters in the name. You will see, when you refer to his original alias—”

Here followed a highly technical, tedious, and altogether too tiresome explanation which even Dawson, devoted as he was to the mouse delivering it, followed with only mild interest and absolutely nothing in the way of comprehension.

“Yes. Er,” he said, when Basil had finished. “You’re certain it’s he, then.”

“Haven’t I just said so?” cried Basil, already returning to the paper. “Yes, Dawson, you may mark my words, this is our man! We will find him at Greystone Manor, under the nose of the unsuspecting Lady Choate.”

“Well,” said Dawson, already seeing the prospect of a quiet weekend at home slip away, “under the circumstances I suppose Mrs. Judson could pack our bags tomorrow morning, and we could take the midday train—Good Heavens, Basil, what is it?”

Because while Dawson had been speaking, Basil had kept reading, and now sat in a different attitude altogether. The paper slipped, limp, from his hand. His mouth worked, but no sound emerged.

Dawson leaned forward and gathered up the sheets, snapped and settled them to rights, and found, with some effort, the advertisement.

“Hrm, hem, talents of . . . Anthony Warbler . . . unparalleled scientific enterprise . . . I don’t see—”

Basil wheezed.

“The final line, Dawson.”

“. . . and of special interest to newcomers is the promising new talent of young medium, Miss . . .” Dawson’s hand took a violent dip of its own. “Olivia . . .”

“Flanagan.”

“Flaversham,” Dawson corrected.

“Dash it all,” Basil moaned, “then you see it too.”

“Well of course I see it. But there must be _some_ explanation. Perhaps another person of the same name?”

“Perhaps,” Basil allowed. “I mean, it’s _possible_.”

“Certainly it is,” Dawson agreed. He thought of a warm bed and a comfortable mouse to share it with. “Certainly, it’s possible.”

Both mice sat in reflection a moment longer. At last, Dawson sighed.

“I’ll have Mrs. Judson pack the bags tonight.”

Basil nodded grimly. “Yes, quite right.”

 

~*~

 

Not an hour later they were bundled up in whatever they could find that did not smell of their most recent adventure, and heading back out into the night.

“Step lively Dawson,” cried Basil, “we don’t want to miss the last train!”

Dawson snuggled his muffler up over his mouth, and stepped lively.

“Cry God for Harry,” he mumbled into the thick folds of wool beneath his moustache.

“Eh?” Basil dodged a patch of ice that Dawson, by pure luck of balance and inertia, managed to skate across to the other side, “what’s that then?”

“Oh nothing,” said Dawson. “Just a little rallying cry, to keep the spirits up.”

“Excellent!” crowed Basil, and they rounded the corner together, just as the train pulled into the station. “Do you know, old man, there isn’t a soul I’d rather have along with me for this than you?”

Dawson flushed, pleased. “Indeed?” he said. “Well, I mean, I—”

“Whoops, here we go!” said Basil, scampering along the platform. “Mind the gap. What was the thing you were saying, again?”

“Oh, never mind,” said his friend, hustling up onto the train in his wake. “I don’t think I’ll need the rest.”

For now, the train boarded, the company good, the adventure about to begin again, it was difficult to remember the appeal of even the coziest of beds, or the hottest of bricks.

Indeed, beneath his nice wool muffler, smelling only very _faintly_ of sewer, David Q. Dawson was contentedly warm.

 

~*~

 

The journey to Greystone Manor was complicated somewhat by the late hour at which they arrived.

“We have no invitation, Basil,” Dawson observed uneasily, as the two mice scampered up the long, curving drive. “It’s highly unorthodox that we should simply present ourselves and expect to be welcomed.”

Basil was no victim to any perception of the unorthodox.

“My dear fellow, Lady Choate has arranged a séance not a month after her husband was laid to rest and advertised for an audience to it. I think our way forward is quite clear, don’t you?”

Dawson didn’t, but he was more than capable of following Basil’s lead. When the door swung in and a plump, grey mouse enquired as to the nature of the call, Dawson hardly betrayed any surprise at all when Basil promptly flung an arm over his eyes and gave an unearthly moan.

“We have come,” he intoned, “at the behest of those who have passed beyond. They converge on this house. They summon all true seekers to their presence! We are Commanded and must Obey.”

As he progressed through this speech, his voice deepened and wavered in a manner reminiscent of a struck gong. By the end of it even Dawson, who knew exactly why they were there, had half begun to imagine they might have been summoned by spirits from the beyond.

The butler didn’t stand a chance.

They were admitted to a receiving room that, while it might fairly have been called small in proportion to the remainder of the house, was still larger than all public living areas in their shared flat combined. Dawson, who had once been to Buckingham Palace itself, was nevertheless sufficiently aware of his surroundings (and the clinging aroma of their earlier adventure) to hover in the middle of the rug and forbear to seat himself on any surface.

Basil also declined to sit, but did so in favour of prowling furiously about the room, nosing his way into this corner and that, though what he expected to find Dawson could not for the life of him imagine.

“Basil,” he said at last, “perhaps it would be more appropriate to—”

The suggestion was never completed, due to the door opening once more. The butler announced Lady Choate, and a tall, slim mouse of elegant, silvery-grey complexion swept in. Her skirts swirled and settled appealingly around her, and she extended two hopeful hands to her uninvited guests.

“Gentlemen!” Her voice was soft, its accents wholly pleasing to the ear. “I am told you have been summoned here by otherworldly forces.”

“Indeed.” Basil was before her in a trice, sweeping an elaborate bow and clasping her offered hands in both of his. “I hope you will forgive our intrusion, but those of us who are sensitive to the leadings of those who have Gone On Before have learned to ignore their whims at our peril. Tonight it was impressed upon me that we must present ourselves to you as being wholly at your service, and thus you find us.”

It was a greatly affecting speech. At least, Lady Choate was greatly affected. Dawson, wondering uneasily where this was going, made a noncommittal sound and inclined his head in confirmation when she spared him a curious glance.

“But my dears,” said Lady Choate, “how _fated_ this must be. Though you could have no way of knowing it, on this very day in this house are gathered some of the most spiritually sensitive souls of our time. No doubt you have been drawn here to add to their number.”

Basil was not about to let this handy opening pass him up.

“It must be so!” he agreed readily. “Now pardon my _forwardness_ in saying so, but I think you will find, your ladyship, when such enclaves of talent are brought together, the results can be _most_ unpredictable and _highly_ unusual. I trust you have taken all possible precautions?”

“Precautions?” Lady Choate repeated, uncertain. “What—er—”

“Oh,” Basil affected a look that would have been especially suited to a doctor breaking some very hard news to a patient. “Oh my dear Lady Choate, don’t tell me you have not made provision for controls!”

“Controls?”

“Controls are the guiding spirits and techniques which prevent malevolent influence. And at such a gathering as you have described,” somehow his arm had got round her shoulders in a gesture entirely too familiar for such short acquaintance, although the lady did not seem to mind this nearly as much as Dawson, “there is _bound_ to be interference.”

“Interfer—”

“Quickly, Doctor!” Basil called over his shoulder. “The scientific apparatus! Fetch it here now. We must make haste to secure this house, Lady Choate, at peril of _all within_!”

When it was put to her in that manner, the lady could hardly refuse.

 

~*~

 

“But of course you must meet the others first,” Lady Choate said firmly, as Basil made some vague pretence of refusal. “They include your fellow Seekers, after all.”

“Well,” said Basil, “I suppose if you _insist_ . . .”

In fact even if she had not insisted, she could not have kept him from the room. Dawson trailed rather more doubtfully in their wake as she led them down the corridor to another sitting room, to which all guests had retired after dinner. On entering they found quite a collection of individuals assembled, some of whom belonged to the house rather more clearly than others.

“Of course you will have heard of Rosalie Witherspoon,” Lady Choate said confidently, presenting a high-strung mouse of deep yellow, her claret-coloured gown having clearly been constructed in honour of the occasion. Beads of jet leaped and glittered like tiny firecrackers on every available hemline. “A most promising spirit conduit via her employment of the Tarot deck. Miss Witherspoon the Messrs—er—oh dear.” She glanced at Basil with an expression of faint dismay. He came immediately to her rescue.

“Basil of Baker Street,” he announced. If the declaration surprised any in the room, Dawson could not see any evidence of it. “My associate is Dr. David Q. Dawson. A man of science, you understand; as am I.”

The wavering tones of earlier had undergone some alteration. Basil now presented as keyed-up and slightly nervy, but no longer prey to the whims of spiritual insistence, as he had been on first gaining admittance. Dawson cleared his throat and, when Miss Witherspoon favoured him with her attention, nodded in greeting.

“Miss Witherspoon,” he said, still wondering exactly what sort of persona his was meant to be in relation to Basil. “Lovely weather for a haunting, wouldn’t you say?”

Apparently this did not pass for acceptable small talk among mediums. Miss Witherspoon smiled very thinly, wrinkled her nose as if she had caught a whiff of an unsavoury odour, and retreated.

“And here we have Mr. Anthony Warbler, a man who must need no introduction. Even those of we newest initiates to the world beyond have heard of Mr. Warbler.” Lady Choate’s tones warmed considerably as she presented the handsome mouse, lean and sleek with his dark grey colouring, and rather natty dinner costume.

Basil nodded without any trace of recognition, but Dawson saw the way his eyes gleamed. Mr. Warbler, with an admirable polish of manner, returned the nod.

“Pardon my saying so, Mr. Basil, but I am unacquainted with your name in connection to any spiritual pursuit. Instead, I think I have heard of it in quite another capacity altogether.”

“It is true I have enjoyed considerable success in my other field,” Basil acknowledged, unruffled. “However as of late I have developed some modest talent in the pursuit of spiritualism . . . and spiritualists.”

“How delightful for us, then, that you have arrived to grace us with your newfound understanding. One might even say fortuitous.”

“One might, at that.” Basil bowed again and followed Lady Choate through the next two introductions, one to a round little mouse called Dr. Hobbes, who had clearly overindulged himself at dinner with spirits of a worldlier sort, and the next to a tall, severe-looking mouse, all sharp angles along the cheeks and nose. This mouse was introduced as Calvin Beckett, and seemed inclined to regard the late arrivals as unwelcome competition on an already cluttered playing field.

“Don’t believe I’ve seen you at one of these events before,” he sniffed, and Basil said this was so.

“As Mr. Warbler has already intimated, I am a newcomer to this field, and regret that my esteemed colleague and I have not yet had the pleasure of a parlour performance. As it happens, we restrict ourselves primarily to studying the scientific means by which these phenomena may be better understood.”

“Indeed,” said Beckett, slightly mollified. “Well. Takes all kinds, I suppose.”

“And of course,” Lady Choate concluded, “we are privileged to have with us another guest, a very new talent, although, I gather, quite a gifted one. Miss Olivia Flaversham is in fact a special friend of my ward Amelia, and has come to spend part of her Christmas holiday with us. Olivia?”

It was clear Olivia had positioned herself in such a way as to avoid early introduction, but now that the moment was on her, she stood with every appearance of defiance. She would never be a particularly tall mouse—in fact she was only slightly taller than Dawson at this stage in her life—and was quite slight in build, but there was something wiry and unmovable about her. Never was this more evident than when she stuck out a hand, as if daring Basil to comment.

“As it happens,” she said, “Mr. Basil and I are acquainted.”

Dawson she favoured with a slightly softer smile and nod, which he, forgetting to disapprove of her close association with such chicanery, warmly returned.

Basil, without any indication of dismay or disapproval, took Olivia’s hand and gave it perhaps a too-firm pat of greeting.

“Miss—erm—Olivia is known to us already,” he confirmed.

“Well!” said Lady Choate, mistaking his meaning, “I suppose the news of a promising talent _would_ travel quickly in your circles . . . but here is our Amelia, too, and my son Daniel.”

Amelia was a much taller mouse than Olivia, with a lovely mink complexion. Her dinner dress was appropriate to that of a girl who has already been presented, but recently, and she stayed close to Daniel in a manner that suggested she had already effected the primary social purpose of a girl’s debut. Daniel’s paw under her elbow added further confirmation of the state of things.

“Quite a little group you have set up for yourself, Lady Choate,” Basil concluded, at the end of the introductions. “What is the usual proceeding when communicating? Do we sit around until the spirits appear? Or are things more formally arranged than that?”

“We communicate after the dinner hour, primarily,” Miss Witherspoon volunteered. “The spirits are likelier to present themselves at this time.”

“Yes, I’d heard the phenomenon become more pronounced after dark.” Basil continued to scrutinise the room, although if you had not known him as Dawson did, it is unlikely you’d have perceived this interest in that light. He took in the location of the hearth and its leaping fire; the placement of lamps and tables and various other ornaments and candelabrum. “The spirits do not thrive in direct lighting.”

“As it happens,” said Mr. Beckett, “we’ve already had a successful communication this evening. We were talking about the possibility of another when you arrived.”

“Well that’s perfect timing then!” Basil declared. “Is there a rotation? Or may anyone seek to commune?”

“We had asked Miss Flaversham to favour us with a demonstration of her gift.”

That was Mr. Warbler. He nodded politely to Olivia, who nodded in turn.

“Miss—er—yes,” Basil said doubtfully. “Well, if she’s agreed . . .”

“I have,” Olivia said sweetly. “I am looking forward to it.”

“In that case,” said Basil, “so am I.”

 

~*~

 

The communication did not take place in the large sitting room. Instead the entire party retired to a connecting room, much smaller, and not as warm.

“I think the fire’s nearly out,” Dawson observed, and Basil nodded.

“Owing, I think, less to accident than design. You’ll recall what I said about the spirits doing badly in direct lighting.”

A table had already been set up for the purpose that drew them around it. Two more chairs were fetched for the newcomers, at the high-pitched, excited bidding of Lady Choate. Her ladyship paced restlessly while these comforts were fetched, and at their careful placement all settled in, joined at the hands.

Olivia, as if by some pre-arranged decision, took the chair that set her back to the fire. Dawson, shivering slightly in a more shadowed corner, could not help but envy her a little. Her back would receive a nice toasting from the flames, which would keep her warm. Slight though she was, she still effectively blocked the meagre measure of heat from reaching the rest of the group.

The light cast by the fire was similarly dimmed.

Olivia, her face set in dark shadow, her head and ears hardly more than a fuzzy silhouette, stared at a point somewhere on the wall above Basil’s head. She sighed gently.

“Oh . . .”

Miss Rosalie Witherspoon cleared her throat.

“Is there a spirit there?” she queried. Olivia at once turned a censorious look upon her.

“Miss Witherspoon,” she said, “I do insist on _perfect silence_ when attempting to establish contact.”

“Yes, yes, Miss Witherspoon,” Lady Choate said irritably. “I think that’s quite standard at this stage. Don’t be tiresome.”

If the firelight had afforded them sufficient illumination to see by, every mouse present would undoubtedly have seen Miss Witherspoon shrink back in proper deference to the double scolding.

“Very sorry,” she murmured, and the table sank into silence once more.

Presently Olivia sighed again. This sigh was different from the last. It was lighter, thinner, and drawn out across several notes.

“Ohh-hh-hhh . . .”

Every one of the considerable number of hairs on the back of Dawson’s neck stood perfectly to attention.

A pregnant silence followed this eerie drift of breath. It seemed, though Dawson told himself it was pure fancy, that a cold draught caressed his nose. At long last Olivia spoke, her voice thin and tremulous.

“Am I in contact with one who has crossed over?”

A heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Then—

CRACK

The sound split the silence. Dawson jerked in his seat, and was grateful to note that Dr. Hobbes, who held his hand, was startled also.

Olivia sighed again.

“So tired . . .” she murmured. “Lady Choate? Will you kindly . . ?”

“Of course,” Lady Choate said hastily. “I am familiar with the usual technique.” She cleared her throat importantly and addressed the air.

“Does the spirit agree to rap once for yes, and twice for no?”

Again, the single crack.

“Thank you. Are you a spirit with whom I have had contact before?”

Two cracks.

“Are you a spirit that has previously made contact with any around this table?”

One crack.

“Miss Flaversham?”

Two cracks.

Basil shifted in his seat; Dawson felt the pattern of breathing in the mouse beside him alter.

“Another of the Gifted?”

Two cracks.

“One of the family?”

Two cracks.

Then, abruptly, a series of frantic, uncontrolled cracks, like the spirit was having a coughing fit. The table bucked and lurched, and an eerie glow emanated from Olivia’s mouth.

“ _Too soon_ . . .” she intoned, in a voice quite unlike her own. Then, abruptly, the cracking ceased, the table dropped, and Olivia slumped back in her chair in a dead faint.

The furor around the table was immediate and intense. Amelia cried out, then broke down sobbing on Daniel’s shoulder. Lady Choate called for light, and Mr. Warbler could be overheard to remark to Miss Witherspoon, “quite a performance, all told.”

Dawson paid no attention to any of this, his only thought and purpose being to reach Olivia’s side as soon as he could.

He bent over her in great distress, chafing her wrists and calling her name. Her eyelashes fluttered under the glow of the lamps and candles brought in at Lady Choate’s command.

“What is the matter with her?” Lady Choate cried. “Is she all right?”

“I did warn Your Ladyship,” Basil said gravely, “about the importance of proper controls in this situation. Your youngest medium may not be suitably guarded against this sort of overload. Dr. Dawson? Your medical opinion, if you please?”

Dawson still hovered over Olivia, but could detect nothing in her person that suggested acute distress. He was about to say as much when Olivia heaved yet another artistic, fluttering sigh. She pressed the back of one little paw to her brow.

“Is it . . . am I back?”

“Er, yes, my dear.” Dawson patted the back of her other paw reassuringly. “Please don’t exert yourself in the least. Move about only as you feel you are able. There will,” he turned a truly impressive glare on all onlookers, “be no more of these shenanigans this evening. You are quite unequal to the strain.”

“Oh no,” Olivia protested, “not when we had just made contact!”

“Yes, of course,” Lady Choate nodded as well. “Dr. Dawson is quite right, Olivia. You mustn’t exert yourself. Not when tomorrow night is so important. Come along everyone; I think it is time for all of us to retire. We will all need our strength for tomorrow night’s endeavour.”

This was evidently the agreed-on cue for all of the mice to depart and seek out the comfort of their beds. Dawson longed most fervently for that same destination, but when he moved to escort Olivia from the room, Basil blocked off their exit and shut the door so it was only the three of them left in the room. Then he loomed over Olivia, who had quite recovered her equilibrium, and bristled at her.

“All right, let’s have it: exactly _what_ do you think you are doing, young lady?”

“Who are you to ask questions of _me_?” Olivia retorted. “And,” rather more perplexed, “why do you both smell like the drains backed up all over you?”

“Don’t attempt to change the subject, Olivia. I will have you know that your Uncle David was beside himself when he saw your name in the paper. He insisted we come down this very evening to investigate!”

“Now see here Basil,” Dawson protested, “that was _not_ what—”

“In the _paper_ —” Olivia cried, but Basil let neither of them finish.

“—and I was none too pleased myself!”

Olivia looked suitably shaken at this near-admission of concern.

“Uncle Basil, I’m not here to take advantage of anyone, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“Oh no,” Dawson hastened to assure her, “I’m sure we didn’t think _that_ , did we, Basil?” He paused. “Basil?”

Basil was unwilling to commit himself on the subject.

“Why not explain why you _are_ here,” he said. Somehow it was less an invitation than an order. Olivia made a petulant face, but she did not shrink from explaining herself.

“Amelia’s a friend of mine, from school. That part is absolutely true. We have been friends for ages now. She is the dearest girl and I am very fond of her. Sir Frederick was her guardian, and she’s lived here almost all her life. This is her home.

“Now that Sir Frederick is gone, Amelia and Daniel are worried. They have come to a kind of understanding, and Lady Choate approves of the match, but there are all these people around trying to get their hooks in her. _You’ve_ seen Lady Choate. She’s very sweet, but she has absolutely no common sense. She’ll trust _anyone_ who paints their tongue with a bit of phosphorescence and talks nonsense to her.”

Dawson clucked his tongue in sympathy. “That’s very troubling I’m sure. But surely the property is suitably protected. A man of Sir Frederick’s upbringing would hardly have left it otherwise. I am sure your friend has no cause for alarm; her intended should be suitably equipped to keep them both.”

“Yes, that _would_ be true, except Sir Frederick left no will. Apparently Lady Choate thought it would be bad luck, or something like that. She made a terrible fuss. Wouldn’t let him insure himself either; she’s terribly superstitious that way. Amelia thought Sir Frederick would have gone ahead and done it anyway, because he was so practical, only his solicitors say that he didn’t. At least, he didn’t make a will through them. So now there’s all this money and while the property itself is entailed, most of the money _isn’t_.”

“You have a commendably thorough understanding of the family’s finances,” noted Basil. From somebody else it might have sounded sarcastic, but from the great mouse detective, it was only a compliment.

“Thank you,” Olivia said absently. “Amelia confides in me.”

“Well I suppose that situation does explain their concern,” Dawson allowed. “Although I still don’t see why _you_ —”

“She’s here to speak for dear Sir Frederick, of course,” Basil interjected. “Intercede on behalf of her schoolfriend. Isn’t that so?”

Olivia nodded, utterly unembarrassed by the close scrutiny, and clearly untroubled to be taking part in such a deception.

“Lady Choate is absolutely mad on this sort of thing. Automatic writing and ectoplasm and the rest. I suggested Amelia put a word in for me as some kind of natural talent, and then I’d come along home with her to let Lady Choate know how devastated Sir Frederick would be if Daniel and Amelia aren’t properly looked after. You know, money set aside for their future. And, just in case Lady Choate took it into her head to think otherwise, Daniel asked me to make it clear that Uncle Frederick blesses their union and wishes them happiness, and all that.”

Dawson shuffled in an agony of desire to say a great number of things it was not his place to say.

“That is quite a thing to suggest. And your father is—I mean, he doesn’t—”

“Oh, he’s quite aware of what I’m doing. He made my squeeze-box,” Olivia said breezily. “That’s how I did the rapping tonight. And of course I had a lever on my foot to do the table; it’s a very good one. None of the others could so much as rock the table, though Miss Witherspoon did try. Would you like to see?”

Dawson discovered there was no suitable answer to that, and so he made none. Basil, on the other hand, was intrigued.

“Are you wearing the squeeze-box now?” he wondered. “Because your gait in no way implies the employment of such an apparatus.”

“Yes I know. I asked Father to arrange it in such a way that it wouldn’t trip me up. It’s endlessly awkward, shuffling around such a thing. So he made me—here, I’ll show you.”

She was reaching for the hem of her gown when Dawson hastily forestalled any further sallies to immodesty by assuring her that it was absolutely unnecessary at this juncture for either of her doting uncles to observe the device.

“I can’t see that there’s any need for that now,” he said firmly. “In fact I think what we are all _most_ in need of is bed.”

And even if this was not entirely true for Basil or Olivia, one look at Dawson’s face was sufficient to put any thought of argument straight out of mind for both of them.

 

~*~

 

The following morning brought a blanket of fresh white snow to the countryside. The younger mice—Olivia, Daniel and Amelia—all behaved like children at the discovery, throwing on an assortment of outerwear and scampering outside to tunnel through it. They built a snowmouse, which Daniel made faces at while Olivia and Amelia tackled each other into snowdrifts.

Dawson, watching from the window, smiled indulgently at their vigour.

“To be young again, eh, Basil?” he chuckled. Basil, occupied with constructing some apparatus or other using bits of pipe and wire he’d crammed into the bag Mrs. Judson had packed, glanced briefly out the window and tsked.

“Olivia hadn’t ought to lie on Miss Amelia that way for such a length of time,” he decided. “It is bound to dampen her coat. Season of strep throat and rheumatic fever, this.”

“Oh, honestly Basil! Where’s your sense of fun?”

But Basil, already returned to his device, had no answer to this question.

At length the younger mice came back inside, laughing and soaked through with melting snow, requiring the library fire to be banked up high against the threat of a chill. Dawson joined them for their tea and complimented them on their energy.

“It’s the sort of thing an old mouse likes to see,” he explained. “Young people enjoying themselves. Reminds me of Christmases of my youth, you know. We did much the same thing.”

“Did you too, Uncle Basil?” Olivia wondered, tipping her head back and staring at the open library door. No answer was forthcoming, but Olivia only rolled her eyes.

“I _know_ you’re there, Uncle Basil. I can hear you lurking. Come in and tell Amelia about the time you recovered the Duke’s silver plate, won’t you?”

Another pause, and then, almost sulkily, Basil slipped around the corner and looked around the library.

“This room wants a Christmas Twig,” he decided.

“Basil!” Dawson scolded, but neither Amelia or Daniel took offence.

“It will have one,” Amelia promised. “Christmas Eve it gets put up. That’s the tradition.”

“Yes,” Daniel agreed. “Mother and Father and the servants would decorate it, and hang presents from the pine needles. Then we’d be allowed in to see.”

“Uncle Frederick was absolutely fastidious about it,” Amelia said fondly. “He had a real mania for orderly . . . well, everything, really. It all had to be done exactly right, he would say, or there was no point in doing it at all. So they’d lock the doors and stop up the keyholes—everything. We couldn’t even peek.”

“Maybe this year it will be different,” Daniel suggested. “Now that it’s just Mother. She’s . . . well, she isn’t such a stickler as Father was, anyway.”

Amelia ducked her head, clearly struggling with this memory. Olivia put a paw briefly on her shoulder, comforting her, until Daniel slid his arm around Amelia and drew her close.

Dawson politely looked away from this show of affection, and in doing so caught Basil’s expression. It was one the doctor knew well.

He made an expressive gesture of his own, wondering if Basil wanted some company for whatever he was about to do. But Basil shook his head, made a gesture that Dawson was to remain with the younger mice, and slipped into the corridor on his own.

Dawson, accustomed to Basil’s methods of investigation, smiled broadly at all three of the youngsters.

“How about,” he suggested, “we put that piano to good use. Christmas carols, anyone?”

As it turned out, carols were just what the doctor ordered.

 

~*~

 

Having left the library behind him, Basil made a purposeful trip directly up to the room he and Dawson had so recently vacated. Stepping inside, he found that it was not quite as vacant as they had left it.

Miss Rosalie Witherspoon, deep in contemplation of their partially-assembled apparatus, barely spared him a glance.

“Oh,” she said. “We wondered when you’d get here.”

Mr. Warbler, the other half of ‘we’, nodded casually from his position in a comfy chair by the bedroom hearth.

“Mr. Basil,” he said courteously.

“Mr. Warbler,” replied Basil. “And . . . associate?”

“Yes,” sighed Mr. Warbler, “we had thought that might be news to you. I’ve managed to keep Rosie as a mostly silent partner up until now, but with a score like this . . . well, she simply couldn’t resist. It was going to be our first big job together, you know, and then along came _you_.”

“I take it you were not expecting Dr. Dawson and myself to present ourselves as players in this little domestic piece.”

“It _has_ turned into something of a melodrama in places, hasn’t it?” Mr. Warbler reflected. “I don’t think poor Hobbes is any real threat to Her Ladyship, but Beckett could probably wrest a good deal from her if he played his cards right.”

“You can hardly think I would permit that,” Basil said icily. Mr. Warbler conceded this point.

“Yes, you do turn up like a bad penny, don’t you? I had thought when I laid that false trail it would keep you busy for a dog’s age, but t'would appear that you both got out of the sewer in record time . . . although,” he wrinkled his nose, “I note it has not entirely worked its way out of _you_ just yet.”

“I must remember to burn this waistcoat,” Basil murmured. “But in the meantime, I will content myself with exposing the pair of you, and preventing Lady Choate from suffering any financial loss on top of her personal bereavements.”

“Hmm, yes, about that,” Mr. Warbler said, catching a sharp, prodding sort of look from Rosalie. “What if . . . you didn’t?”

Basil blinked rapidly, as if he could not credit the powers of his own ears.

“I beg your pardon?”

“What if you didn’t?” It was Rosalie this time, looking at him with a peculiar kind of hopeful intensity. It reminded him uncomfortably of Olivia in her earlier years, and it made Rosalie look rather younger than the illusion created by low-cut gowns strewn with sparkly ornamentation. “What if you let us go, in exchange for some information that would let you put a stop to somebody _else’s_ deception?”

“What sort of deception?”

Rosalie glanced back at Mr. Warbler, who nodded his encouragement. She plunged on.

“We didn’t set on this job by chance, you know. We were hired. Somebody heard about us, and what we do—well, what Tony does mostly—and engaged us to work this party. We were to impart information, see, as if it came from the other side. The usual sort of thing. Only this time, we weren’t to speak in our own favour. More like, say a few things according to instruction, and then we’d get paid for it. See?”

“I see that the pair of you are incapable of reform, if that’s what you mean.”

“Come on now, don’t take it like that,” Rosie wheedled. “I mean, it’s almost Christmas! Miracles and all that. Isn’t that what Christmas is for?”

“Miracles are devices invented for the enjoyment of children and the clergy. Being neither, I struggle to see their value.”

“But surely you can see the value in what we have to tell you.”

“What value? No, why in the world would I agree to anything you have proposed? What can you _possibly_ offer, by sharing this information, that I could not effect without your aid?”

“Happiness,” Miss Witherspoon said simply. “Happiness for a young couple who otherwise have very little chance of it.”

Basil faltered.

“Ah. Well. That’s . . . rather different, isn’t it?”

Rosie smiled.

“Oh good,” she said. “I hoped you might see it our way.”

 

~*~

 

“Gone?” Dawson gaped at Basil, struggling to understand the news that his partner had relayed without any apparent great distress or even significant emotion. As far as he could tell, Basil had walked in on a Christmas singsong, drawn him out into the corridor and delivered news of a devastating professional disappointment. And he’d done it without turning so much as a whisker. “Both of them? So she was with him—but—how? When?”

“Oh, they went on foot of course. Not ten minutes ago, I’d say. I had thought they would likely be tempted to examine our room, since we’d made no secret of who we were. And they knew I’d expect them there, so they were waiting to meet with me. Now they’ve slipped away into the village, probably to catch the next train to town.”

“Well then we must get after them! Immediately!”

“Afraid not this time Dawson. I’ve made a sort of bargain, you see. I’d rather not share all the particulars right now; it may yet prove I’ve been made a colossal fool of, and I’d rather know the truth first, in case I need to lick my wounds in private. But if it comes off . . . well, I think you’ll approve, old man.” He smiled almost sheepishly.

“Well, of course if you think you acted for the best, Basil, I support it. But if you don’t mind my asking, what in the world possessed you to even _consider_ a deal proposed by that—that scoundrel?!”

Basil gave him a peculiar look, as though he himself could not quite believe what he was about to say. “Do you know, Dawson, I find myself moved by young love.”

Dawson was still struggling to believe this answer when Basil stepped back into the library and cheerfully ordered Daniel to get out.

“Er, what?” said Daniel.

“Both of you,” Basil clarified, nodding to Amelia as well. “Right away. It’s important that Dr. Dawson and I confer with Olivia concerning our plans for tonight. And I think, in the interest of preserving all illusion of—er—mystery, it’s important we not be overheard.”

“Oh!” Daniel nodded understandingly. “Yes, of course we understand. Come along, Amelia.”

Amelia looked very wistful, like she wished that she dared argue with all of them and insist on being allowed to stay, but in the end she made no protest and meekly went out with him, leaving Basil and Dawson shut up in the library with Olivia. Dawson was rather at a loss to understand what was happening, but Basil looked grim enough that he knew it must be important.

“Now,” said Basil, “first of all. I think we had better get this out in the open, because it won’t be the last secret that’s revealed tonight, and I could do with all of us knowing each other’s secrets because we’re about to be bound together by quite a large one.”

“Basil,” Dawson said uneasily, “you’re not making any—”

“Olivia,” Basil went on, “you have exactly one chance to tell me the perfect truth in answer to this question. And of course I am already pretty sure I know what it is, and you must know that I know, but I feel, given what we’re all about to embark upon together, we really should have it out in the open. Let’s say it’s for Dawson’s sake. He’s an honest fellow like that.”

Olivia nodded, but also looked a little miserable, like she already knew what was about to be asked of her.

“All right,” she whispered.

Basil took a deep breath.

“Your father has no idea what you’re doing here, does he.”

It wasn’t a question. Olivia’s bottom lip wobbled.

“No,” she said, “he doesn’t know. I mean, he does know I’m here, but he thinks I’m visiting a friend.”

“And the, er, apparatus? The squeeze-box, and the rest?”

“Oh he _did_ make the apparatus for me. But he thinks I only use them at school, for fun. He doesn’t know I’m using them for this. And now if it’s in the paper as you say, with my name and everything, he’s bound to find out and I will be in _such_ trouble.

“Only, I _had_ to come, Uncle Basil, don’t you see? Amelia shouldn’t risk all her happiness just because some sham medium is allowed to say what happens to Sir Frederick’s money, should she? It’s not right. _Please_ say you’ll help, or at least, that you’ll let me help her. _Please_.”

“Of course,” Basil said gently. “I mean—come now, there’s absolutely no call for tears! That’s being ridiculous.”

“Naturally he’ll help,” Dawson cut in firmly. “Won’t you, Basil?”

“Well, yes,” Basil said, surprised. “I mean, of course. I thought I had already made that clear. Hadn’t I?”

“Really?” Olivia did not altogether trust herself to let go of his neck. “Truly?”

“If the subject of this weekend is ever raised, I will tell your father you have kindly agreed to assist in our investigation and that you employed his inventions to do so. Not even an untruth in the statement, really, when you think about it. Will that suffice?”

Olivia managed to nod.

“Y-yes. I think so . . . oh Uncle Basil, _thank you._ You’ve no idea what it means to Amelia.”

“Yes, well, enough of that,” he decided, peeling her off his neck with considerable effort. “It’s all been settled. Now. You’ve mentioned the squeeze box and the table-turner, but what other toys did your father fashion for you? I’ve a notion they are about to come in very handy.”

 

~*~

 

The séance that night was not conducted in the little room off the large parlour. Instead it was arranged that it should be held in the library: the room, Lady Choate explained, which was likely to carry the strongest impressions of Sir Frederick.

“He did love the library,” she said wistfully.

A number of wellborn mice from the surrounding region had come for the ceremony, and their glittering presence lent a real air of solemnity to the entire proceeding. Lady Choate stood up before all of them and made a gracious little speech of welcome.

“I know many of you came to see the great spiritualist Mr. Anthony Warbler, but unfortunately a matter of great importance has called him away, and with him, Miss Rosalie Witherspoon.”

She paused, but the anticipated murmur of dismay did not materialise, suggesting that perhaps the mice were less devotees of the study of spiritualism than they were drawn by their curiosity about whatever changes grief had wrought on the psyche of Lady Choate.

If they had hoped to see a woman teetering on the edge of a great nervous breakdown, however, they were to be disappointed. With Amelia’s own help Lady Choate had chosen a simple gown of severe black, which complemented the silvery sheen of her fur to a really beautiful effect. She seemed a mouse in perfect command, not only of herself, but the entire room.

“However, in their absence we are favoured with the presence of Dr. Hobbes and Mr. Beckett, both esteemed mediums in their own right, and of course our very own Miss Flaversham, a very fresh and unusually strong talent. We also have the scientific expertise of Mr. Basil of Baker Street and his esteemed colleague, Dr. David Q. Dawson. We are in very capable hands here, I do assure you.”

She then invited everybody to take up a spot around the table. Amelia and Olivia sat on either side of a well-dressed neighbour couple, while almost directly across from them were Basil, Dawson and Daniel. At other points around the table were dispersed a mix of neighbours and mediumistic talent.

Lady Choate smiled encouragingly at Dr. Hobbes.

“Would you, Sir, be so good as to begin? I’m sure we are all very excited.”

Dr. Hobbes gave about the level of performance that was to be expected of a mouse who had put away more than a meal’s worth of alcohol, which was to say it was only due to the considerable length of his experience that he did not actually drop his squeeze box or shove up his sleeves to reveal wires wrapped around his forearms.

He managed to make contact with his control, an Egyptian prince called Anuk-su-Rah, but he kept getting his control mixed up with a more malevolent spirit called Duffer, and the two often ended up speaking each other’s lines until even Dr. Hobbes came to the realisation that he’d lost control of his control, and mumbled that he’d dropped the connection and couldn’t restore it, so sad, very sorry, terrible disappointment. Then he sank back in his chair and proceeded to doze lightly while Mr. Beckett was invited to have his turn.

Mr. Beckett was clearly more than ready to take it.

He leaned in with a predatory shoulders-forward posture that should have been enough to give every mouse in that room considerable pause.

“We must all focus,” he enjoined them. “Perfect silence, you understand? I am about to make contact with a spirit that came to me in a dream last night. This is not a spirit I have ever channeled before, but he appeared to have matters of great import he wished to convey. I think it is urgent that we establish a connection with him immediately.”

Everybody obligingly adopted expressions of intense focus. Dr. Hobbes snored delicately.

“Spirit,” said Mr. Beckett, “spirit that communicated with me in my dream state last night . . . are you with us?”

Silence stretched out beyond the question.

“Likes to milk it, doesn’t he?” Basil murmured in Dawson’s ear. Dawson choked softly.

“Spirit,” said Mr. Beckett again, “if you are here, I adjure you—”

A gasp went up from another point at the table. A young peer had dropped the hand he held and was gesturing urgently at Olivia beside him.

“I say,” he said, “I’m sorry, but—”

“ _Silence_ ,” Mr. Beckett whisper-shouted. “Don’t you see, if the spirit is to make contact we must have—”

“Yes, yes,” gibbered the mouse, “very sorry, I’m sure, but don’t you see? It already has!”

A closer inspection revealed that Olivia’s hand was jerking unevenly across the table, her bare fingertip pressed to the wooden surface. In its wake trailed . . .

“Writing,” Amelia breathed. If she remembered that her friend’s talent was entirely an invention of three young people in search of a happy ending, she gave no sign. “The spirit is writing through her . . . look! It says ‘I hear. I come. Ask of me . . .’ and then it just sort of trails off . . . oh quick, Mr. Beckett, ask it something!”

One look at Mr. Beckett’s face made it very plain he had not intended to ask questions of a spirit whose answers he could not fashion for himself.

“We don’t know that this is the right spirit,” he said stiffly. “I am reluctant to risk—”

“Spirit,” Lady Choate, dissimilarly reluctant, leaned in at once. “Spirit, have you a message for us?”

Amelia focused on Olivia’s finger, jerking and twitching artistically over the tabletop.

_Yes. Urgent. From one new here._

Lady Choate suffered a series of tiny tremors, but quickly regained command of herself.

“Is it . . . spirit, is it Sir Frederick Choate?”

Olivia’s conscience was clearly beyond the burden of such a blatant play on the lady’s feelings. Amelia relayed the reply.

_No need for names where we are now._

“Of course,” Lady Choate murmured. It did not, apparently, occur to her that the mediums’ controls often used names. “But who . . ?”

_One who loves you. Deeply._

Lady Choate heard in these words what she desired to. She pressed her hands to her face feelingly.

“Oh,” she breathed, “oh, my dear . . . yes, Frederick. Speak. I am listening.”

Again the hand leaped and jerked.

_Earthly matter. Unimportant to me now. Important still for you. Loved ones must know. Will._

“Will what?”

Amelia studied the reply carefully.

_Will. Will. Will. Will._

“Frederick, you aren’t making any—oh! Frederick, did you leave a will?”

 _Yes_.

“But the solicitors said you didn’t.”

_Secret. Did not wish to worry you._

“Oh Frederick,” Lady Choate briefly lost her battle with tears. “How very like you.”

_Important to you now. Must be read._

“Yes of course, Frederick. Only tell us how to find it and I swear I will see your every wish is carried out to the letter.”

_No need._

“What do you mean, no need?”

_No need to look. I will send it._

“What do you mean—”

She did not even get a chance to finish the question before the deed was done. Directly above the centre of the table came a poof of spark and smoke. A thin document fluttered languidly from the midst of the cloud to land on the table. Although not everybody could read each word from where he sat, the heading was unmistakable:

Last Will and Testament of Sir Frederick Reginald Choate, Baronet.

The effect of this document on Daniel Choate was positively explosive.

“What the devil are you playing at, Olivia?” he cried out, leaping up from his seat. “Look, cut that out—cut it out, I say!” And here he actually leaped for her, teeth bared, only to have Dawson catch him firmly by the tail and give an imperious jerk.

“Now see _here_ ,” barked the good doctor. “I will _not_ have you disrupting a medium in a trance state! Don’t you know that could be disastrous for her constitution?”

“Medium!” Daniel laughed hollowly. “That’s rich! It’s all a sham, every bit of it. Amelia and I cooked the whole thing up, didn’t we—Amelia?”

Daniel turned to appeal to his fiancée, and in doing so he belatedly registered the fact that Amelia was focused, not on Olivia, but the document itself. She had picked it up in trembling hands and, at reading the first few lines, began to weep.

“It’s his hand,” she said. “I’d swear it. Auntie, look, do you see?”

Lady Choate also broke rank with the Gifted and the guests, and came to stand behind Amelia’s chair. She, too, was deeply affected by the sight of the will.

“Indeed it is his very hand. He must have drafted this in secret . . . oh and look, he had it signed by old Norris the gardener and his wife. Norris passed away last spring, and Mrs. Norris has gone north to her sister—of course they could not have told us they witnessed his signature . . . oh my dear Frederick. But what does it say?”

Amelia had been reading even as Lady Choate spoke.

“It all looks straightforward,” she said. “Nothing much out of order. Some annuities, an amount settled on you absolutely, Auntie, and . . . _oh_.”

She dropped the document abruptly. Lady Choate came to her rescue, scooping it up and picking up where Amelia had left off.

“A sum . . . in sterling . . . settled unconditionally on my ward Amelia Garland, who has been as a daughter to me . . . oh my dear, don’t cry! Don’t you see, this makes perfect sense. Of course he’d want you to be provided for in this manner.”

Amelia was too overcome to answer properly. She was not, however, too undone to hear the rest of what transpired:

“Tell us, spirit,” Basil invited in ringing tones, “from what location did you manifest this document? Some secret chamber of the spirit world? A hidden cupboard in Sir Frederick’s study? Come now, as a man of science, I will have my answer! Where was this will?”

The answer jerked and lurched from Olivia’s fingertip, condemning in its hard brevity:

_The bedchamber of Daniel Choate._

Again Daniel leaped for her. Dawson was not in time to stop him, but it was of no great matter since Amelia got there first.

She leaped up to stand in front of Olivia and stare Daniel down with a frightening coldness: one that had him drawing back from her entirely, as if he did not want to risk her temper just now.

“Daniel,” said Amelia, “ _what did you do_?”

“I—” Daniel blinked, and saw too late the manner in which he had exposed himself before an easy dozen witnesses. “Oh, hang it Amelia, don’t you see? All of this was for us!”

“I don’t believe that for a minute,” was the chilly rejoinder. “And I think you know why.”

Then she knelt by Olivia’s chair and said, gently and imploringly, “oh my dear one. You can wake up now. You’ve done it!”

 

~*~

 

Olivia was brought out of her trance with all due ceremony (she fluttered and murmured most bewitchingly) and if, during the time it took her to come around, her adopted uncles were rather occupied with the hasty collapse and concealment of some apparatus meant to produce a spark and satisfying cloud of smoke, everybody was too fixated on Olivia to witness it.

Once Olivia had been fortified with a small glass of sherry (and rather adroitly worked her false fingertip and its stub of chalk off her hand, to be dropped safely in her pocket) Amelia at once knelt by her chair to tell her the entire story. Lady Choate meanwhile instructed Daniel to remove himself from the room; in fact, she strongly encouraged him to spend Christmas elsewhere, and present himself in the New Year to see what reparations, if any, could be made in an effort to restore the trust he had broken.

“Only think,” she said tremulously, “you had it all this time! And the spirits saw fit to expose you, thank goodness, or Amelia might only have got her inheritance through marriage to you . . . quite out of the question now too, of course. Really Daniel. What _would_ your father say?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” was Daniel’s parting shot, and everybody was gracious enough to pretend they hadn’t heard.

Dawson, less interested in family drama and Olivia’s theatrical return to consciousness, drew Basil aside and asked him the question that was weighing most greatly on his mind.

“However did you _find_ it?”

“I looked in the only logical place, of course: the boy’s room. No chance he’d have taken it to school with him, since a young man is afforded no true privacy or sanctity of his possessions in such a place. I was confident it would be in his room, and so it was.”

“But how did you even know it existed?”

“Everything the children said about Sir Frederick’s strict observance of rules and regulations, even on the occasion of Christmas, suggested he was a man of rule and order. Such men do not neglect to leave wills, even at the whims of their wives, but they might take steps to minimise all matrimonial disharmony by making those wills in secret.

“Add to that some information I recently acquired about the boy, from our sometime quarry and his—er—Miss Witherspoon, and I thought it very likely not only that there had been a will, but that he had acted in the suppression of it. We’re only lucky it wasn’t destroyed outright. Perhaps his conscience did not permit such an act of finality.”

“But _why_ would the lad do such a thing? He benefits no more by the lack of will than he does by this one. There is no mention of ending the engagement, he is given substantial property . . .”

“Yes, Dawson, but who _does_ benefit from this will, in a manner which is highly undesirable to Master Choate?”

“Wh—Amelia? But surely he would be pleased to know she had received such a legacy. He loves her.”

“I don’t doubt he believed he did. But there are different types of love, Dawson, and I very much fear the sort which Mr. Choate bears Amelia is not that type which seeks first her happiness. Rather it is a possessive and jealous sort, which was most fatally inflamed when he perceived the truth of her affections.”

“What truth is that?”

“Observe.”

Across the room Amelia, sobbing as she reached the end of her tale, had cast herself into Olivia’s arms. Olivia, all traces of her trance quite vanished, bore the taller girl up with sturdy resolve and seemed perfectly content to go on doing so as long as she was obliged to.

Dawson blinked.

“Oh.”

“Yes.” A prolonged sigh escaped Basil. “Yes, indeed. An independent life for Miss Amelia, such as she would arrange to suit herself, is unlikely to feature Daniel in any prominent role. He knew, or guessed, and so concealed the will to ensure Amelia would be obliged to depend on him. Now she is free to choose as she wishes, and . . . well.”

Amelia and Olivia still clung to each other. Dawson suffered a fond pang of recognition at this sight before the next question occurred to him.

“But—what will they—”

“Do? Well, I suppose _that_ is a decision which can now be left entirely up to them.” He clapped a feeling hang onto Dawson’s shoulder. “Thanks to us.”

It was not entirely due to the roaring fire or even the flush of accomplishment that David Q. Dawson was so thoroughly suffused with warmth.

 

~*~

 

They were off bright and early the following morning. Olivia saw them to the door of the manor, but no further. She had arranged that she would go back to school with Amelia after the holiday, and did not care to leave her before then, even for a visit to the city.

“She needs me right now,” Olivia concluded.

“For now,” Basil agreed. “Oh—er—yes.” For Olivia had flung her arms around him and kissed him soundly on both cheeks with all the heartfelt impulsiveness of a little girl.

“Thank you,” she said. “Oh _thank you_ both. I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t managed it. But you did—both of you—and now she’s entirely free. It’s all I ever wanted for her.”

“That is precisely what makes you worthy of her, my dear,” Dawson said firmly. Olivia shut her mouth with a snap.

“Oh,” she said in a much quieter voice than before. “Well, I don’t know about _that_.”

“What’s to know? When you find a partner who agrees with you so thoroughly and disagrees with you so enjoyably, what is left to wonder about?”

A tiny smile curled up the corners of Olivia’s mouth. Her whiskers stiffened bracingly.

“I suppose you’re right. But it’s early days yet for us to decide things. You know, arrangements and such. I mean,” a bit of her usual spark reasserted itself, “it isn’t as if _we_ could go into the detective business, too.”

“And why not?” Basil asked breezily. “It works very well for us.”

Olivia smiled fondly at both of them. “Yes, I know it does.”

Then she flung her arms around them both, one at each neck, and might have gone on squeezing them a good while longer if Amelia hadn’t appeared at the top of the stairs behind them. She was dressed in green, all fir-bough bright, and Olivia’s attention was immediately captured.

“Olivia!” she said. “I wouldn’t rush you, only they’ve just now brought in the Christmas twig, so I thought . . .”

“Yes of course,” Olivia nodded. “I’ll be right along.”

She turned back to her friends, gave them an apologetic shrug and unapologetic smile, and whisked away to follow the other mouse.

Exchanging unapologetic smiles of their own, Basil and Dawson let themselves out.

 

~*~

 

It was a quiet trip back to town. The countryside was blanketed in fresh, white snow that sparkled gently in the pale light of a watery winter sun. Dawson enjoyed this part of the journey enormously, though it had all turned dark and slushy well in advance of their reaching the city.

Fighting through the crowds at the train station took them an age, and the weather was that wet sort that makes it impossible to leap aboard a cab in the usual way, since they are mostly all engaged and unlikely to stop. All of this meant that both mice were winded and chilled through by the time they got home once more.

There is of course something special about arriving home at the end of almost any journey, but you will find, as Dawson did, that there is absolutely nothing in the world like coming in from the cold, wet city streets at Christmas time.

Mrs. Judson had the hearth polished bright and gleaming, and a roaring fire leaped and snapped within. Fresh greenery festooned every suitable surface, and there were little cut-glass bowls of edibles on every surface that hadn’t got a decoration.

“Oh my,” Dawson marvelled, putting out his hands to catch the fire’s warmth. “I must say, Basil, it’s _good_ to be home.”

“It is rather, isn’t it?” Basil paused to take in the completion of the scene, a festive promise of the day to come. “Yes, she’s done very well, I think. Even got the mistletoe up.”

“Eh?” Dawson peered up and saw a sprig of that greenery affixed to the ceiling, three plump white berries looming overhead like smooth white globes. “Oh! Indeed.”

“Well,” said Basil, “in the spirit of the season, and all that . . .” and he leaned in to give Dawson at _least_ three berries’ worth of kisses.

Dawson, quite overcome by the spirit of the season, returned the favour.

Over the next half an hour a decent veil had best be drawn. We will lift it as the two mice settle into their chairs by the fire, supplied with lounging robes (Basil) and seasonal delicacies (Dawson).

“Pity about Warbler,” Dawson offered, tucking into his gingerbread with great relish. “I know you were hoping to catch him.”

“Mmm.” Basil took up his violin and set the bow to the strings. “And his accomplice too. Still. I think we’ll get them, by and by.”

The bow eked out the same tune as it had at the beginning of their latest adventure.

“It’s a season of miracles, after all. Or so I’m told.”

“Oh yes,” Dawson said fervently. “Yes, indeed.”

He sank back in the green chair, listening contentedly to the music that spilled forth into the parlour. As he nodded off, he half-fancied the strains of the violin from the parlour wound around them both, a ribbon of bright sound bearing them safely along into the winter's night.

_All is calm, all is bright . . ._

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide! I was _so_ excited to match with you on this. I had wanted to treat your request last year, I set aside so many articles on spiritualism and started imagining tiny mouse Christmas trees and basically fell in love with all your ideas, but it just didn't happen in time. So _thank you_ for repeating those delightful prompts this year. I hope that you enjoyed the result!


End file.
